I don't know. Your build looks OK in the pictures.On the Uno, are you sure you had the 6-pin cable oriented the right way? Did you try it both ways?Did you try removing the power jumper on the USBtiny and powering the Uno through the barrel jack instead?

I tried both ways on the uno, and broken out connected to the correct uno pins, and on a breadboard with another atmega328 that had no bootloader, but I always got the same message. Could the buffer chip be broken or something? I am learning c and need something to program with.

Well, that's pretty definitive. The USBTiny is working. Your problem is going to be with the 328.

I had a look at the AVRFreaks topic you linked to. As I understand it, you broke a pin and installed a ZIF socket? The pin you broke isn't related to ICSP, so I have to conclude that there's a problem with your ZIF socket - either the socket itself has a problem, or its connection to the UNO is not secure.

Did you solder the ZIF socket in place of the DIP socket? Check your solders. If you'd like, feel free to post some pictures of your UNO, and we'll see if we can spot any problems.